“I’m feeling sorry for that big boy they call Teddy,” remarked Frank later on, when they had reason to believe that another half hour would take them to the station where they expected to get out.
“Me, too,” added Bluff. “He seems made of different stuff from his ugly relative.”
“He certainly looks disgusted with the way his uncle acts,” Will declared. “How do you suppose he came to be with them up here, Frank?”
“Oh, I suppose they asked him to come along, and help out with the cooking,” replied the other, “and he caught at the chance to get an outing without any expense. Some men come up here just to drink and lie around camp. They are ashamed to carry on that way at home, and too lazy to even bother cooking, so they either have guides to do all the work, or else fetch some half-grown boy along. I’m sorry for Teddy, because I imagine he’s in for a bad time all around, and with mighty little pleasure.”
“Already the boy is more than half afraid of his uncle,” Will gave as his opinion. “Like as not he never dreamed he would turn out to be such a brute, once he got started for the woods.”
“I hope they keep the man quiet until we can leave the train,” said Frank. “It would be unpleasant to have a row to begin with.”
“Didn’t you say ours was the next one to this stop?” asked Bluff eagerly, as he pressed his nose against the glass and looked out, when the train came to a stop at a small country station.
“Yes, it’s the next,” Frank observed, “though if we chose we could go on to Clayton, and even then be about as close to Lumber Run. I was told we might find the trail a little better from Burnt Pine, and that’s why I picked it out.”
“Looks pretty lonely, doesn’t it?” asked Will.
“Just what I expected to find,” Frank replied. “I’ve always known that in all Maine this section had gone free the longest from the operation of the loggers. That’s why it’s called the Big Woods. For many years it’s been a favorite place for guides to bring parties of sportsmen, because they were pretty sure to find deer, moose, perhaps a bear, and always an abundance of partridge.”
“But,” remarked Bluff, “now that Samuel Darrel and his company, in which Uncle Felix has a big interest, have bought up all this section, with the idea of getting out the timber, it’ll only be a few years before the game is thinned out. Logging always hurts hunting.”